Minister of Finance Vuong Dinh Hue assured the public on Tuesday that the Government's VND29 trillion (US$1.38 billion) business support package would make it into the hands of the people who needed it most via a transparent process.

In an interview with the Government Web Portal, Hue said the support package, which consisted of financial measures, would help businesses lower costs, boost sales and secure needed capital.

To ensure transparency, the ministry has requested agencies to issue appropriate guidelines and train taxation officials at the local level to implement the measures in the package in a fair and timely fashion.

"What is important here is to increase aggregate demand which means we will accelerate disbursements in public investment projects, State budget funds, Government bond proceeds and other national target programmes," he said.

The ministry has instructed the State Treasury to work closely with the ministry- and provincial-level finance and planning and investment officials to grant capital to basic infrastructure projects, enabling construction to begin as soon as possible. The construction works would in turn create demand in the building materials industry which is burdened with large unsold inventories.

Hue said the Government would add VND2 trillion ($96 million) in the form of loans to consolidate dikes and build pumping stations for irrigating paddy fields in the southern region. The Government would also allow provinces to conduct their own public procurement processes with a budget of up to VND1.7 trillion ($82 million).

Hue said tax breaks in the package would effectively provide floating capital totalling VND16 trillion ($768 million) which would otherwise have been paid in the form of taxes. However, he noted, enterprises that had ceased operations or were operating at a loss would not benefit from the corporate tax reductions in the package.

"The beneficiaries will be mainly small- and medium-sized enterprises and businesses that are labour-intensive," he said, noting that distribution and logistics enterprises would benefit, as well as manufacturing enterprises.

In the meantime, the Government would increase funding for trade promotion on both domestic and international markets, Hue said.